Law Commons^™

Substantive Media Regulation In Three Dimensions, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

Changes in the political and regulatory climates are prompting calls to revive substantive government regulation of the broadcast media, specifically the now-defunct fairness doctrine. In this article, Professor Magarian attempts to sharpen the present debate over substantive regulation by closely examining earlier defenses and criticisms of the fairness doctrine. The article assesses how supporters and opponents of the fairness doctrine have characterized three issues essential for assessing the doctrine's wisdom and constitutionality: who is regulating; who is being regulated; and the goal of the regulatory scheme. As to the first issue, who is regulating, fairness doctrine supporters emphasize the democratic …

Campaign Finance, Iron Triangles & The Decline Of American Political Discourse, Timothy A. Canova

Timothy A. Canova

The Constitution protects the rights of Americans to participate in politics through assembly and membership in private interest groups. Yet the Founders recognized that interest groups and factions posed a particular danger in a democracy. According to James Madison, there was no way to remove the causes of faction without destroying liberty itself. The only solution, he said, was to control the effects of faction by encouraging the proliferation of factions to oppose and counter the influence of any particular faction.

This is a legalistic judicial discourse that ignores the realities of power imbalances in contemporary society. The modern theoretical …

Q'S World: The Future Of Broadcast Regulation, James H. Quello

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.